


Salty-flavored hope

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [21]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 13:05:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6117328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo and Timmy had another terrible argument about Timmy's boyfriend Alex. But Leo has a sudden change of heart and tries to fix things by inviting Alex over for dinner. Problem is, Alex is not easy to please when it comes to food and this dinner can easily turn into a disaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salty-flavored hope

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is a spin-off sequel for Broken Heart Syndrome. This means that, despite not being properly set after BHS (but that's only because BHS is probably never going to have a proper ending and we'll keep talking about these people forever), it depicts things happening way late in the 'verse, and that may be on varying degrees of spoiler.

“Why don't you invite him for dinner?”

The question comes so unexpectedly that Timmy is not sure he heard it right. He pauses the game, earning his little brother's protests, and turns to look at Leo, who stands awkwardly on his bedroom door. Leo's not really great at talking and he tends to express everything physically, sometimes it's a rage fit, sometimes it's a nervous tic, but most of the times it's just a mere difference in his usual posture that gives away whatever is passing through his mind. The fact that he's casually hugging himself without stepping inside tells Timmy that his father is here to do something that he possibly wants to do but he's not sure how well received it will be, and so he's nervous. Leo is clearly out of his depth here.

“What did you say?” Timmy asks, definitely putting down the controller, which results in Logan huffing loudly. This was supposed to be his bonding time with his big brother and he's not happy about this intrusion. Timmy pats him on the head to reassure him that they are going to resume playing soon.

“Why don't you invite him for dinner?” Leo says again, nervously shifting his weight from one leg to the other. 

“Who?” Timmy blinks. 

Leo hesitates a little before he says, “Alex.”

For a moment – a very long one – Adam doesn't only doubt of having heard him right, but also to be awake at all. Maybe it's still the middle of the night and he's still soundly asleep in bed, and he never started playing video games with his little brother on a Saturday morning. He and Leo never talk about Alex,. He is the giant pink elephant in the room, and it's been there for so long that nobody notices it anymore. Basically, they've been placing things on it as if it was one of the coffee tables. In fact, their elephant in the room became part of the room itself, turning into a piece of furniture. He and Leo never talk about Alex because every time they do, they fight and someone ends up crying, most of the time Leo. 

This is exactly what happened a few weeks ago, anyway. Leo refused to have Alex over for spring break, for reasons that had nothing to do with logic and a lot to do with Leo's self-entitlement, and some weird form of jealousy – Leo has tons of them – about the fact that Alex is Cody's son, something Timmy hasn't quite grasped yet and he's not sure he even _wants_ to. But Timmy didn't want to give in. Alex lives in Italy with his parents. It's so rare for him to come to the States and be able to spend the whole spring break here that Timmy wasn't going to waste the chance to have him over for two weeks by having him stay at his grandparents' house.

The fight between them got pretty nasty and Blaine walked in on them screaming at each other. Then, Timmy told Leo he was just being a selfish prick, that only because he couldn't make sense of the mess he had in his head, it didn't mean Timmy had to give up on his boyfriend, and that he wasn't going to give in like Blaine just because things weren't going as _poor Leo_ wanted. Leo made that hurt face he makes every time Timmy purposely crosses the line and Blaine intervened sending Timmy to his room. 

Timmy knows that Leo must have cried and that he was really upset because, when finally Blaine called him downstairs for dinner, Leo was nowhere to be found and he remained locked in his and Blaine's bedroom for two days straight. Blaine decided to resolve the matter by asking Timmy to spend spring break at Alex's grand parents' house instead of the other way around, to which Timmy agreed. He was not really happy about it, but he knew that having Alex over with Leo around would have been unbearable anyway. So, this was a solution he could live with. The moment Alex set foot on American soil, Timmy was there with his suitcase, ready to spend two weeks in Fort Shawnee. Today he's back in the house only because he needed more underwear and because he had promised Logan to spend the day with him. Plus, Alex is visiting some old aunt he had no intention to meet.

“What?” Timmy asks, after what seems like an eternity. Only one word came out of his father's mouth, and even that one doesn't make any sense.

Leo fiddles with the hem of his sweater, that shows a Japanese-like elf character Timmy doesn't know as he picks up a chubby chick. “I just thought it could be nice,” he slowly says, forcing himself to look at him. “I don't really know him, after all. It could be an opportunity to do that.”

Timmy doesn't know what made him change his mind about having Alex in the house – and for dinner too, dinner is Leo's most sacred daily event – but he suspects Blaine had a part in this change of heart. Leo looks sincere, so he probably really wants to do this, but Blaine must have talked him into doing something, anything, that could fix things between them, at least partially. And making people food is one of Leo's favorite things, so of course he thought of that. The problem is, this might not be the best idea in this particular case.

Timmy could still pretend to be offended, of course, and ignore his father's effort, but he is not like that. He can see that Leo is really trying, even though they didn't really talk it out after the fight. “It's a nice thought,” he says, trying to find the right words. “But we might want to find other circumstances for you to meet him, don't you think?”

Leo frowns. “Why? He could come over next Tuesday.”

This conversation has the potential of turning into a mess, so Timmy really thinks his words through before using them. “Alex doesn't really eat much,” he says hesitantly, and that's a huge understatement. In fact, by anyone's standards, Alex basically doesn't eat. His approach to food is upsetting at the very least. “You would be very disappointed.”

Leo loves to cook. Blaine says there was a time when Leo didn't cook every single meal every day, but as far as Timmy can remember, Leo has always been the one in the kitchen, making breakfast, lunch and dinner. Home-cooked meals are something he easily associates with his younger father. And he knows that cooking is one of the few things Leo enjoys and does willingly. Sometimes he just cooks for the sake of it, because he's got time or because he simply wants to make something in particular. Pleasing other people with food is his way of caring, so it's really important to him. But, Leo being Leo, when something goes wrong or his guests make it impossible for him to feed them for one reason or another, he gets irritated. And Alex, beautiful and adorable as he is, sometimes makes Timmy nervous too when food is involved, so Timmy can't really imagine what would happen if Leo was faced with the impossible task of feeding his boyfriend.

“You can tell me what he likes and I'm gonna make it for him,” Leo insists, hopefully. 

Last month, Alex's diet was fully vegetarian. A few months prior it had been strictly vegan. Some weeks he's on a cleanse, and he only consumes liquid food, some others he goes by colors. And in any case the look and amount of what he eats wouldn't agree with Leo's idea of good and healthy food, which, like all his ideas, is absolute. But if Timmy says no to his father now, they are going to fight again. Maybe not as badly as it happened a few weeks ago, but they will fight. If he can't redirect Leo towards another option, he _must_ accept the one he's proposing him. This is going to be a disaster. 

“I'll ask him what he's eating these days and then I'll let you know,” he finally says. “But if it's something unacceptable, we're going to find something else to do all together, okay?”

But Leo is already smiling excitedly. “Don't worry! Whatever it is, I'm going to make it work.”

*

Forty-eight hours later, Leo is already regretting is decision as he has never regretted anything else in his life before. Alex is insane, and someone should really take into consideration the idea of locking the kid away somewhere. He's not following any diet worthy of the name, he's just fashionably starving himself. Reportedly, Alex is currently only eating seaweeds. When Timmy gave him the news, Leo just stared at him for a solid two minutes without saying a word. He was expecting a punch line, clearly, but there wasn't one. Timmy was serious, and he had nothing else to offer him than, “I told you, dad. Maybe he can come and have a chat over tea.” But at that point, Leo took it as a challenge. If Alex wanted seaweeds, he was going to give him seaweeds. And Alex was going to like them.

He went to the nearest bio-food shop of the city and bought all the kind of seaweeds he could find in the story, together with a book on how to cook them. The nice man behind the counter also gave him a bunch of other stuff he said was going to be useful, and then he came back home to study a menu.

As it turns out, what you can make with seaweeds are broths and omelets, two things that are as sad to eat as they are to prepare. Luckily, Alex let him know through Timmy that he also allows himself a few vegetables and legumes – such luxury! – but not in large quantities, so Leo can at lest put some creativity into it.

He starts with some toasted snacks of nori seaweed. They are very easy to make and horrible to look at. He refuses to even try them because they smell like the pier in Coney Island. They are supposed to be inviting snacks – perfect for the kids, says the book – but they look like burned pieces of thin cardboard. He arranges them on a plate with white rice balls on the side that he shaped in the form of a rabbits using the egg shaper he bought to pack the twins' lunch for school.

Then, he moves to the omelets. He's not supposed to use eggs because they are not in the very short list of allowed ingredients Timmy gave him, but he found out on the internet that he can use chickpea flour in place of them. As he adds this kombu seaweed to the bowl and mixes all the ingredients, he looks at the recipe with open hostility. This is not cooking. It's basically crumbling algae over various tasteless food. It is both boring and undignifying. The omelets turn out thin, sad and sick-green. And it bothers him that he can't check their taste because he can't find it in himself to put something like that in his mouth.

The next step is to grab the blender from one of the cabinets and start making what passes for beverages in Alex's diet. He's got some indications on those too. Alex wants him to mix vegetables and fruits that shouldn't even see each other in the kitchen. If there's a God, this is not how he intended them to be used. 

Obviously, there's no way his family will eat any of these things, so he's comforting himself with the idea that he's got real food ready in the fridge for all of them to eat tonight. Blaine finds him staring sadly at a pot filled with water on the stove as he blends one cucumber after the other.

Blaine knocks gently on the wall to catch his attention, and smiles. He's dashing in a pair of black jeans, a white t-shirt and his _cool dad_ long sweater. And since he's wearing his glasses, he looks like a mature writer in a chick-flick. You would expect him to have a lake house with glass window walls and a nice dog he walks every day on the lake shore. In the end, the dog will suddenly stand up and bark, and he will be worried, only to find out that the woman who had been resisting from falling for him throughout the whole movie, now can't deny his love for him anymore, and she came all the way here, in the middle of nowhere, – where he has retreated, giving up on her and on love altogether, convinced to be doomed to spend the rest of his life alone – just to be with him.

“May I come in?” Blaine asks, dissipating the very specific movie in his head.

“Yes,” Leo chuckles. 

Blaine seems relieved to find him in a good mood. No doubt he was expecting the worst. “Why the chuckle?” He asks. “Are seaweeds so funny?”

“No, they are an insult to me and to this kitchen,” Leo answers. “I just had a vision of you in a lake house.”

Blaine hugs him from behind and swings, giving him a kiss on his neck. “Do I want to know?” He asks, amused.

Leo smiles too. “I'm not sure you do.”

Blaine dares to smell what Leo has been blending and cringes, making a face. “Is he really going to drink this stuff?”

“So he says,” Leo sighs. A tiny part of him thinks that Alex just answered the first thing that came to his mind when Timmy asked him about the food, possibly to spite Leo. 

Blaine holds him tighter and gives him another kiss. “You're doing great.”

“Hold that thought, I'm going to ruin a perfect seafood pasta tonight,” Leo murmurs, looking sadly at the water-filled pot once again. There's an art behind every pasta dish he makes, and it's clearly hurting him to have to reduce everything to essential, tasteless ingredients. It bothers him even more when he thinks that Alex comes from an Italian family. He should know that this is heresy and be against it.

“And again, do I wanna know?”

Leo shakes his head, “You better not.”

*

Alex and Timmy arrive on time.

The tension in the house is high, but luckily the twins are overexcited and this proves to be really helpful for the mood. They both like Alex a lot, but Harper has fallen in love with him a very long time ago. To her, Alex looks like a real life doll. She loves the way he dresses and wears make up, and the way he moves and speaks. She's particularly fascinated by the way he's so undeniably a boy and yet he is, in her words, as beautiful as the queen fairy. In fact, to sanction her undeniable love for him, she officially included him among her top-five princesses, together with Elsa, Merida, Moana and the new entry, Shasa, whose ebony skin has been the latest craze in the house for the past two months. In no time, she will ask for a doll of Alex to put next to the other four.

Leo is very grateful to his children as they engage Alex before dinner. Harper stuns him with ramblings about clothes and toys, while Logan tries to steal her thunder by showing him his latest drawing, something he knows Alex will love because he draws too. Logan doesn't seem to grasp the difference between his drawings and Alex's fashion sketches, but Alex politely admires his creativity anyway. He's used to kids – between Timmy's siblings and his friend Neri's three little brothers, he has dealt with his fair share of them – and he's quite good with them, despite his icy attitude that makes him seem unapproachable.

They sit down at the table twenty minutes later, and Leo is so nervous that Blaine has to gently maneuver him to his chair and take the lead, before his husband can drop something out of sheer panic. “We are happy you decided to come,” Blaine says, smiling at Alex. And when he smiles back, Blaine's heart skips a beat. Sometimes Alex's resemblance with his father is almost painful and he perfectly manages to bring back memories that are better left alone. That's why he understands why Leo has so much problems with him, except that his husband is completely unable to deal with his own emotions and always manages to make a mess of them.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Alex says. He's sitting next to Timmy, opposite to the twins, Leo and Blaine being at the ends of the table. It's all very formal, like Alex had never been there before. And somehow it is true. He's been here before, but never with Leo's approval. He never had a proper _boyfriend_ introduction to Timmy's parents.

“So, I didn't know anything about seaweeds,” Leo says, all business-like. “But I made some research. I hope everything came out right.”

Alex looks at the display of food in front of his eyes. There are several plates with different kind of seaweed food, all arranged in good fashion. He must admit that he's honestly impressed. His father goes above and beyond to feed him – no matter the diet – but he wasn't expecting the same from Leo. “Thanks, but you shouldn't have,” he says.

“You can't come here for dinner and not eat anything,” Leo says. “It's a rule.”

Timmy chuckles. “And by rule he means royal decree,” he warns his boyfriend. “When food is involved, he looks a lot like your friend Neri's dad. One time he didn't let me get up until I had a third serve of his famous spaghetti Bolognese.”

“I bet they were delicious,” Leo nods. “When your grandmother, Cody's mother, made it, there were always at least ten people over for dinner.”

“Oh, but that's Sunday for us,” Alex says, chuckling. And then he grabs one of the seaweed food and puts it in his mouth, and for a moment everybody holds their breath. All eyes are on him. The planet itself stops spinning from a moment, waiting for Alex's opinion, from which depends Leo's sanity, this dinner and, ultimately, a bit chunk of their lives, because there can't be a fight the only time and attempt at peace has been made. There might not be another one. Even the twins – who knows very little of this war – look at Alex with their mouth wide open, possibly because to them it looks like Alex is eating garbage.

And then, heavens open and the Sun shines brighter than it has ever done, when Alex looks up from his plate and blinks a couple of time, totally dazzled. “This stuff is awesome,” he says, and he's not just being polite, Timmy can see that. He knows the tone in his voice, he knows the way his eyes just remain cold and distant when he doesn't believe what he says. Alex is actually _beaming_ , and he's animated about food like he has only ever seen him about sex. But that's better left unsaid.

When Alex asks “Can I have more?” and Leo is ready to pass him the whole plate, Timmy knows that there's hope. Right now it's tiny and it smells like salt, but he holds onto it as much as he can.


End file.
